


To the Dusk

by empathy_junkie



Series: The Company Expanded [2]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Drabble, Other, Short, reflections, unrequited romantic feelings, very short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 20:49:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12802080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empathy_junkie/pseuds/empathy_junkie
Summary: for tumblr; very short and very bullshit. bear with me I love this pairing.





	To the Dusk

The location was brilliant. Of course it was. The view from Kozue wasn't acclaimed baselessly.

It was the view of a city perpetually being consoled by the promise of the next morning's improvement of circumstances. A skyline that was desperate to shed the darkness that had begun to define it. A world that waited to be acted upon.

In _his_ eyes, at least.

Namikawa hadn't asked for an approximation from the man who often sat across from him at their window-side table, and he had two reasons for doing so. First was the fact that Suguru Shimura seemed not to notice the grand landscape at all. It wasn't that his eyes wouldn't rove toward the busy scenery - impossibly wide whites glinting with an animalistic kind of fear - rather that he always carried himself in a manner that suggested his keen awareness of the vastness, the cruelty, and the impersonality of the world at large.

Place to place, it didn't seem to matter to Shimura, and Namikawa wasn't so indulgent as to put him on the spot.

No. He had to be careful with Shimura. He had to hold him at arm's length without making it obvious what was keeping him there, and bringing him into a discussion about the romanticism of the evening skyline would only serve to dredge up one of the most prominent reasons. Namikawa had never encountered a man who regarded him with such a congenial measure of _tolerance_. There had been many with reserves and many with critiques, but Shimura's take on his person was starkly original.

Namikawa longed to argue the point, because whatever it was, it was distinctly _un_ favorable. Yet it was a source of some aggravation that he never got the change. Shimura held his opinions in the depths of his eyes and they never traveled past his lips.

_Aggravating._

Being scrutinized to a shameless degree was nothing unfamiliar, of course.

In fact, Namikawa had grown so accustomed to walking under the weight of a mass of gazes that the pressure had added a certain curvature to his shoulders and languid temperance to his eyes - his body condensed and solidified into something more vibrant. In this way, he dictated the object of their curiosity, lyrically yet without any great affectation.

At first, this schema had been applied to Shimura Suguru. In fact, it still did, being more a part of Namikawa's body than a conscious decision alone. However, over time, it had become increasingly dissatisfying. Shimura had proven his singular ability to define _properly_ what he saw. An affectation, all of it - the gentle widening of the eyes or the slow movement of a finger across the sheer side of a glass.

_And he disapproves._

A redundant echo that occasionally struck Namikawa just before he leaned in closer across the table or brought his hair carefully behind his ear, as if to remind himself that the head of personnel was still only at his mercy, as were all others who entered into conversation with him. There was no danger in a man observant and honest. There was no danger in a man who had _scruples_ yet was too generous to state them outright. It was just a situation he would have to learn to maneuver, and once he had, he would be able to deny the clear taste of displeasure that often resided in the back of his throat after the other had made his excuses and turned to leave.

Perhaps the _real_ danger was that a few, unbidden words had risen in his throat to stop Shimura's descent from their lofty position of solidarity and peace and back into the humming, revving, blinking, mundane reality below.

It was no small exception: to welcome another onto a kind of proverbial level ground, and if Shimura was privy to this information, his reaction was disappointing, at best.

Namikawa lifted his eyes from the glistening surface of the table-top and turned them listlessly toward the open expanse of sky and architecture once more.


End file.
